The myth of Gong and Yu: as a mythological reflection of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy among the Xia people

Yan Chenbei PhD in Cultural Studies Postgraduate student; Institute of Philosophy; St. Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Mendeleevskaya liniya, 5, office 32 st106502@student.spbu.ru

The purpose of this study is to study the reasons for the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy based on the phenomenon of the father-son relationship (the birth of Yu without the participation of a woman) in the myth of "Gong and Yu" from a historical and cultural point of view. The research method is literature research. Combining two cultural phenomena — the cult of totems and the Chanwen system for a deeper historical and social analysis of the Gong and Yu myth. The key lies in understanding the social functions, symbolic meanings, and cognition and logic underlying cultural symbols. The purpose of the work defines the following tasks: (1) Combining two cultural phenomena, a cultural analysis of the use of the myth of "Gong and Yu" in Chinese literature is carried out.; (2) To identify social problems related to the reflection of myths in Chinese history; (3) To analyze the historical and literary significance and socio-cultural representation of the myth of "Gong and Yu".

I. The main characteristics of the transition from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society

(1) The cult of totems in China

The cult of totems is a product of a matrilineal tribal society. In this era, the prevailing system of organization of society was group marriage, and, as Chuang Tzu said, "people know their mothers, but not their fathers" ^[13]. In other words, people did not distinguish between the natural relationship between parents and children. They kept the name of the founding mother of the family and linked the birth of their ancestors with the relationship between her and some god. In this case, the gods are totems, which are usually selected from a variety of plants, animals, or inanimate creatures that have a close connection with the clan and are revered as symbols and emblems of the tribal group. However, due to the constantly developing institution of marriage, children began to get an idea of who their father was, and this phenomenon led to the beginning of a crisis in the totemic cult.

Within the framework of matriarchy, after the death of a man, his property passes to the clan in which he was born and is inherited by his maternal blood relatives, and his children can inherit their mother's property only jointly with other maternal blood relatives, or at most separately from their mother, but not from their father. With the development of productivity to a certain level, the status of men increased, their wealth grew, and they tried to rely on this fact to change the system of inheritance from clan members that was widespread at that time so that the right of inheritance belonged only to their children. L.G. Morgan believes: "The accumulation of property and the desire to pass it on to children was in fact a factor in the emergence of monogamy, which aimed to provide legitimate heirs and limit their number to genuine descendants of the married couple" ^{[6, p. 281]}. As a result, men gradually became the backbone of the clan, and women obeyed them. With the collapse of the matrilineal clan, the cult of totems gradually disappeared from the historical scene, and only some of its remnants have survived to this day. In general, the existence and disappearance of a totemic cult can be viewed as a dividing line between matrilineal and patrilineal tribal societies.

(2) The changwen system

It is generally believed that the transition from matrilineality to patrilineality took place smoothly and gradually, without significant upheavals, but in reality it is one of the most radical revolutions in the history of mankind. This is evidenced by the custom, which received the name "chanwen system" in Chinese (Chinese, literally "giving birth to a father"), but is also known beyond the borders of China. This term usually means that the mother does not breastfeed the baby after giving birth, but the husband takes care of him in bed. This system is fixed not only in China, but was also widespread in many countries of the world among various ethnic groups. For example, in the Caucasus there was a so-called "men's bedding". In North America, among the Shoshone, when a pregnant woman gives birth, her husband retreats to a secluded hut prepared for him by his mother. He must stay in the hut alone for five days, until the moment when the umbilical cord falls off the newborn. He must also observe various taboos, usually close to those applied to menstruating women: do not eat any meat, no soups, but only grains, do not wash before the expiration of five days, etc.^[14] Many Native American tribes, the Dinka people in the Congo and White Nile valleys in Africa, the Ainu in Japan, the Basques in the Pyrenees, a number of indigenous peoples in the South Pacific and other ethnic groups have also preserved traces of this system to the present day.

The motive of the birth of a child directly from the father can also be traced in the mythological material. In ancient Greek mythology, Athena was born from Zeus and Metis. Zeus swallowed Metis without chewing when she was pregnant. Later, Zeus felt pain in his head and asked Hephaestus, the god of fire, to split his head with a bronze axe, and then Athena jumped out of her father's head screaming. Here we can also mention Dionysus, whom Zeus extracted underdeveloped from his mother's womb and carried out by sewing into his thigh. The myth of the conceiving mother and the giving birth father is, to a certain extent, the background for the origin of the concept of "chanwen". Thus, it is obvious that the Chanwen system, like the cult of totems, is a phenomenon common to the "childhood of mankind."

In ancient Chinese myths, through the stories of Gong, Yu and Qi, one can trace the trajectory of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in the history of Chinese primitive society.

II. Historical and cultural analysis of the evolution of matriarchal and patriarchal societies

Patriarchy in China originated in the Chuanxiu period, but the final formation of the system underwent long-term changes, and during the Yao-Shun-Gun-Yu period, remnants of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy still remained.

(1) Analysis of the relationship between Gong and Yu

The myth of Gong, Yu and the fight against the flood is one of the oldest Chinese mythological plots that have survived to the present day, it first appeared in the "Book of Mountains and Seas" ("Shan hai Jing", whale. 山海经) and "Chu stanzas" ("Chu Tsy", kit. 楚辞) during the Warring States period. Traditionally, his key characters Gong and Yu are considered father and son. According to the treatise "Shi Ji" (Chinese: "Historical notes"), Gong was executed after he failed to curb the flood problem, Yu inherited the position of Gong, continued to fight the flood and eventually succeeded. However, if we trace the origin of these characters, we will find that the Guna myth contains many mysteries that are difficult to answer. It can be said that the myth of Yu is the result of the development of the myth of Gong. Regarding the point of view on the relationship between Gong and Yu, there were two different narrative systems in the period before the Qin era: one system, officially recognized, was recorded in historical biographies, and the others, cited in the Book of Mountains and Seas, The Chu Stanzas, and other books, can be called narrative systems of a mythical nature..

The first type, according to the records of "Shangshu Yaodian" (Chinese: 尚书*尧典), "Shi Ji" and other books, Emperor Yao (Chinese: 尧) he instructed Gunya to contain river flooding. For nine years, Gong unsuccessfully tried to fight the elements, ceding the imperial throne to Shun. Shun executed Gong in the Yushan Mountains. "Mountain of Feathers" or "Wing Mountain"), and his son Yu was told to continue fighting the floods, and Yu eventually managed to divert the flood. The earliest record of this kind of official statement dates back to the fortune-telling book "Guizang" (Chinese). According to the record, Gong firmly knew that he would not be able to cope with the flood, but he did not retreat, despite the difficulties. Instead, he used the method of "blocking the flow of all rivers" (literally "hundreds of rivers", Chinese) to further control the flood. In the book "Guo Yu" (Chinese: 国,, "Speeches of Kingdoms" or "Narratives of Kingdoms"), in the section "Zhou Yu Xia" (Chinese: 周:: 周下下) it is written: "In the past, Gong Gong... wanted to block the flow of all rivers, demolish the hills and dam the lowlands to harm the Celestial Empire. For this, the great Heaven did not give him happiness, the people did not help, troubles and troubles arose, as a result of which Gong-gong was destroyed. Then, in the time of Yu-yu, there lived Gong, the ruler of the Chun domain. He gave free rein to his vicious heart, and repeated Gong Gong's mistakes in his actions, for which Yao killed him in the Yushan Mountains" ^{[2, p. 62]}. In this passage from Guo yu, it is mentioned that Yi Gong (kit. 鲧) , and Gungun (whale. 共工) they tried to "block the flow of all rivers" to combat floods , but in the end they failed and doomed many people to death, for which they paid with their own lives. In fact, the deeds of Gong and Gungong are similar. Scientists of the "School of Discussions about Ancient History" ("Critics of Ancient History", kit. 古史辨派) believe that in fact this is the same person. In 1934, Tong Shue mentioned in a postscript to the "Discussion on the Origin of the Theory of the Five Elements" that Gonggong is the avatar of Gong. After that, Yang Kuan devoted a lot of space to describing this point of view in the Introduction to the Ancient History of China. His statement caused a great resonance at the time and was accepted by many scientists. The historian Sun Jun quotes Yang Kuan extensively in his 1940 book A Study of Chi Yu. With the advent of our days, more and more scientists are wondering about the identity of the figures of Gong and Gungong. They believe that the evidence for the claim that these two are actually one person is insufficient and this claim is difficult to confirm ^{[20, 25]}.

Although it is still difficult to say for sure whether Gong and Gonggong are the same person, according to the above excerpt from Guo Yu Zhou Yu, we at least know that people during the Spring and Autumn period, as well as during the Warring States period, believed that Gong and Gonggong had The experience of flood control and Gungong made a mistake when damming rivers, which led to failure. Gong did not learn from Gonggong's failure, but continued to use his predecessor's erroneous methods, which eventually led to disaster. It is worth noting that Guo Yu reports that the person who executed Gong was Yao. However, in "Meng Tzu" (kit. According to the record, "Shun exiled Gong-gong to Yuzhou, sent Huan-Dou to the settlement in Chunshan, executed San-Miao in Sanwei, and killed Gong in Yushan. The tradition of the execution of these four villains led to the fact that the whole Celestial Empire submitted to Shun, as those who were impartial were condemned" ^{[7, p. 132]}. "Meng-tzu" not only calls Shun the man who killed Gong, but also lists the names of Gong, Gonggong, Huan-dou (kit. 驩兜) and San Miao (whale. (苗)) as the "four villains". The author of the book believed that their deeds were extremely evil, and therefore their murder by Shun should be considered a just punishment. By the time Liushi Chunqiu was written, Gong's "sin" ("wickedness") was not only his inability to quell the floods, but also his desire to ascend the throne, resist Yao's abdication in favor of Shun, and organize a rebellion.

In the narrative about the relationship between Gong and Yu, the phrase "Gong is Yu's father" had already appeared and was widely disseminated in the pre—Qing period, however, in later generations, the version of the family tree chain "Huangdi — Changyi — Chuanxiu — Gong—Yu" (Chinese: 黄——颛顼—鲧—禹) spread, and information about their family relationships appear relatively late. They are not found in various documents of the early period, but appear in the Confucian documents "The Power of the Five Emperors" ("Wu di de", kit. 五帝德) and "The Bloodline of the Emperors" ("Di xi", kit. 帝系). Confucius said: "Gao Yang's grandson and Gong's son are called Wen Ming" ^{[10, p. 729]}. The "Bloodline of the Emperors" says: "Wu Chuanxiu (husband.) Gong (husband) was born, and Gong was born Wenming, also known as Yu (husband)" ^{[10, p. 737]}. In addition, in the book "The Origin of generations" ("Shiben", kit. It is also mentioned: "Chuanxiu was born Gong, and Gong was born Gaomi, aka Yu" ^{[1, p. 90]}. This statement was eventually accepted by Shi Ji as an official authoritative statement.

Moreover, there is another theory about the relationship of Gong and Yu, full of mythical overtones. According to the "Book of Mountains and Seas", namely its XVIII section (juan) "Catalog of [lands] inside the seas" ("Shan Hai Jing: Hai nei Jing", Chinese: "The waters of the flood spread to the heavens. Gong did not wait for the Ancestor's order and stole the self-growing land to block the flood waters. Then the Ancestor ordered the Conjurer of fire to execute Gun at the Wing [-mountain]. Gong rose from the dead and gave birth to Yu. Ancestor Yu then ordered to complete the organization of the earth in order to establish Nine regions" ^{[5, p. 164]}. The mythical elements of this passage are obvious. On the one hand, Gun stole the earth from the Ancestor, like Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods. According to Guo Pu, a commentator on the Book of Mountains and Seas, self—growing land ("Sizhan land") is a soil that grows endlessly and swells like dough. The Ancestor (di– "emperor") clearly means the divine Emperor of Heaven, and not the mortal emperors such as Yao and Shun mentioned in historical biographies. On the other hand, Yu was born from Gong's body after he was executed. It should also be noted that, according to some versions, Yu was born in the form of a snake or a yellow dragon; this gives his birth an even greater mythological flavor.

Thus, the myth of the birth of Yu from the belly of the Gong can actually be seen as a transformation of the myth of the death and rebirth of the Gong. The wording according to which Gong turned into a yellow dragon after death means that his soul ascended to heaven and was reborn, but in a different guise, which received the name Yu. In The Golden Bough, Fraser discusses in detail the fact that in the minds of primitive people, divine rulers are high up, and rulers are analogues of the gods in the mortal world, so that "the death and resurrection of the ruler seemed to be the only way to preserve in its entirety his sacred life, necessary for the salvation of the people and the whole world" ^{[11, p. 204]}, and that therefore witchcraft should be used to protect the ruler's soul from harm, and that when the ruler's health is weakened, it is necessary for the new ruler to gain the power of the gods by killing the old one — this process is understood as the ritual killing and subsequent resurrection of god. The myth of Gong and Yu accurately confirms Fraser's opinion, as Sun Jung-en said: "As a myth, he (i.e., the father of Gong, who gives birth to Yu in the womb) represents the perseverance of man in his struggle with nature and the perseverance of man, who can even be resurrected from the dead and can be 'transformed' and "transformed" into another new person. [Transformation] Gong[ya] — Yu[ya] is just such a mythological transformation. Speaking about the relationship between Gong and Yu, it should be said that Gong is the predecessor of Yu, and Yu is the successor of Gong..."^[8] Moreover, Gu Zili also believes: "Gong became the victim of human sacrifice, through which ancient people tried to gain control over the water element. Gong is the god of water, and to use him as an object of sacrifice is to kill the old god and create a new one. The dissection of Gong's womb gave birth to Yu, the god of water" ^[3]. Thus, the myth of the "death of Gong and the life of Yu", widespread in the pre-Qin period, is actually a relic of the concept of divine power returning from the dead within the framework of the ancient witchcraft tradition, i.e. the transfer of divine energy from Gong to Yu is carried out through death and rebirth.

(2) Analysis of historical aspects

Nevertheless, reflecting the content of the struggle against the flood, the myth of Gong and Yu also has as its background the historical phenomenon of the transition from matrilineality to patrilineality, fully reflecting the struggle and conflict between the two sides during the period of social transformation. Starting from about the time described in the myth of Gong and Yu, tribal communities in the Yellow River basin in China gradually shifted from a matrilineal clan structure to a patrilineal one. This is "one of the most radical revolutions that humanity has ever experienced" ^{[15, p. 67]}. The social structure, ideology, culture, and customs of the matriarchal era began to change to patriarchal ones. It is against this background that the events of the Gong and Yu myth unfold, and therefore the transition to a patriarchal-clan organization of society is clearly traced in it. With the development of the productive forces, a series of conflicts for power arose between the fading matriarchal system and the gaining patriarchal system. This struggle is reflected in the myth of Gong and Yu, dating back to the same period.

First, the gender of the hero who saves China from the flood is changing. In the original myths about catastrophes that developed during the matriarchal period, the feat of Nuwa, who patched up the firmament, was actually an attempt to stop the flood by sealing the holes in the firmament through which the water gushed. During the transition from the Nuwa myth to the Gong and Yu myth, the transformation of the hero – fighter against the elements from a woman to a man is observed, which reflects, firstly, the appearance of agricultural tools and the development of labor productivity - "For ancient people, death was not the end of life, but the transition to rebirth" ^[8] – (according to according to traditional patriarchal concepts, a woman should not have worked outside the home, much less used agricultural implements), secondly, the physical superiority of men over women; primitive people gradually realized the superiority of men, which marked the beginning of the emergence of patriarchal power.

Secondly, there is a gradual loss of a woman's reproductive rights. In "Shan hai Jing", the legend of the "Women's Country", Nyuzigo, is set forth: "That is, the Huangchi Pond is a Yellow Pond. Women go swimming in it. When they come out, they find themselves pregnant" ^{[17, p. 268]}; the Annals of the Kingdoms of Wu and Yue (Wu Yue Chunqiu, Chinese: 吴) also mentions a girl from the Yuxin family named Niuxi, who "was having fun on Dishan Mountain and suddenly felt strangely excited. It turned out that she got pregnant. She opened her side and gave birth to Gao Mi [i.e. Yu]"; Jian di, the ancestress of the Yin people, swallowed a swallow's egg and gave birth to a boy named Qi ^{[12, p. 346]}. It is recorded in these materials that the founding fathers of the clans were born in the womb of a chaste virgin without copulating with a man. Singling out motherhood as an exclusively female function establishes the sacred status of motherhood in a clan society.

However, as the connection between conception, pregnancy and childbirth becomes more and more obvious, the struggle for reproductive rights begins. In the Book of Mountains and Seas, it is written accordingly: "The Kingdom of Men is located north of the Wei bird. People there wear clothes, a hat and a sword on their belt" ^{[5, p. 127]}; "From the south, the country of Zhangfugo, the Country of men, adjoined the Country of shamans. There wasn't a single woman there. Their clothes were always in order, and a sword hung from their belt"; "They had no wives, but everyone could give birth to two children from their bodies. These children were shadows at birth, and when they ceased to be a disembodied shadow, the men who gave birth to them died. It was also said that these children were born from their armpits" ^{[16, p. 207]}, etc. With the development of a civilized society, patriarchal power has not only not weakened, but continues to strengthen, and the myth of how Gong gave birth to Yu is a classic example of the myth of the miraculous birth of a son without the participation of a woman. This tragic myth hides the fierce struggle between patrilineal clans, when they fought with matrilineal clans for the right to the ancestry of their children.

The alternation of matriarchy and patriarchy, the transmutation between the two earliest social systems of human society, has its own laws of functioning. According to later records, at that time, "[When] the Great Tao was in effect, the Celestial Empire was gong (Tianxia wei gong, i.e. the world was just). They chose the virtuous, promoted the capable; taught loyalty, perfected friendliness..." ^[19], this is a classless world with a division of property. Described by later generations in similar literature, it actually refers to the situation in matrilineal clan societies. And then, as the general ownership of the tribe increased, the share of private property in the clan began to increase and the desire of the tribal leaders for personal wealth, and the position of the tribal leader, or even the entire tribe, gradually became the subject of controversy. However, the struggle between the system of voluntary transfer of power and the hereditary system began in the era of Yao, Shun and Gong, i.e. at the beginning of the period of transition from the matriarchal to the patriarchal system. The reason why Gong dared to break the traditions of the matrilineal clan society and wanted to keep his children in his native clan was because Gong had become a man who defied the matriarchal order. At the same time, Gong's attempt to take the place of the ruling matriarchal elite is documented.: "When Yao ceded China to Shun, Gong was one of the Zhuhou. He became angry with Yao and said, “The Di ancestor is the one who has found the heavenly way, the tao; the gong is the one who has comprehended the tao, the law of heaven and earth. But you didn't make me a sangong!”By doing this, he wanted to say that Yao is wrong. He was so eager to get the title of sangong that in a rage he was ready to turn even to wild animals as allies, wanting to rebel in order to achieve his goal. He aligned the horns of the beasts so that they formed a kind of city wall; he made them raise their tails so that they could be mistaken for banners" ^[21]. This fragment is significant enough to demonstrate that Gong is brave, single-minded and has a spirit of contradiction.

(3) Analysis at the institution of marriage level

Gong's end is tragic — he was exiled and executed. Gong's son, Yu, inherits his father's business, but in addition, it is worth paying attention to the marriage of Yu and his wife Tushan. According to the book "Chu Ci: Heavenly Questions", the reason why Yu got married without completing the fight against the flood was because he wanted to have a successor, so he went to the daughter of the Tushan clan, and walked the path of "husband and wife" in the land of Taisang. But not like everyone else, so on the 8th he got married, and on the 1st he pacified the flood ^{[18, pp. 97-98]}. Ethnographers have established that human marriages have gone through five stages of marriage customs: primitive promiscuity, consanguineous marriages, "punaluan" marriages excluding ties with blood relatives of the first degree, paired (dyadic) marriages and monogamous exclusive marriages ^{[9, pp. 202-203]}. Mixed marriages are a common system of marriage in ancient times, which does not have a fixed form of spouses and does not form a family. Mixed marriages are described in "stories of miraculous births and offspring in heterogamous marriages" ^{[9, p. 203]}. The story of the marriage of a foreigner and a bear, as well as the myth of Yu's birth, are a reflection of primitive promiscuity. Consanguineous and punaluan marriages belong to the stage of polygamy, which is structured in the form of polyandry. Members of dyadic marriage clans seek husbands or wives outside the clan; intermarriage between men and women of the same generation within the clan is not allowed; men seek wives from women outside the clan, and women seek husbands from men outside the clan. As men's status increased in social production, men were expected to marry women, returning them to their clans, and their wives would live with their husbands. Since then, dyadic marriages have reached the stage of exclusive marriages. Exclusive marriage is understood as monogamous marriage, an institution that arose with the rise of the status of men and the development of patriarchal foundations.

Did Yu and Tushan belong to the same clan? The "Judge of Historical Records", referring to the "Imperial family tree", writes: "Yu married a daughter of the Tushan clan named Nuwa in order to give birth to Qi" ^{[23, p. 65]}. In Chinese mythology, there is a female character named Nuwa, who is key to the plot of patching up the firmament; this Nuwa usually takes the form of a snake with a human face. However, Nuwa, who patched up the firmament and created man, did not belong to the Tushan clan. In addition to the name "Nuwa", a woman from the Tushan clan was known by other names: in the Chronicles of Spring and Autumn (Chinese: 吴)), the name "Nu-jiao" (Chinese: 女娇) is given, and in the Age of Emperors (Chinese:王王)), "Yu-nu" (In the aforementioned Nuwa myth, there is no information that Nuwa was named "Nyu-jiao" or "Yu-nu" (strictly speaking, there is nothing in common between these two characters except for the female gender and the matching name), therefore the Tushan clan cannot be unequivocally defined as a snake. Nevertheless, it can be said with certainty that in the myth of Gong and Yu, all the metamorphoses of Gong and Yu are associated with the images of a bear and a dragon, whereas snakes do not appear in this plot in any form. At the same time, the Tushan clan has nothing to do with bears or dragons. Therefore, the Gong and Yu clans and the Tushan clan have different totem animals, which indicates that the marriage relationship between Yu and the Tushan clan took place between two clans rather than between representatives of the same clan. As stated in the "New Study of Tushan", "the Xia and Tushan clans were two intergenerational communities, and the marriage system at the end of primitive society was a dyadic marriage system in which two intergenerational clans were more firmly united in marital relations" ^[4]. Moreover, as for Yu's marriage, some scholars argue that the story of Yu's marriage to Tushan reflects the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy in China's primitive clan society. The tragedy of the Tushan clan is a colorful depiction of the collapse of the matriarchy and the triumph of the patriarchy ^{[24, pp. 43-46]}. For the same reason, they had a son named Qi. Since it was customary in matrilineal clan societies for a child to stay with his mother, Yu demanded the return of his son from the Tushan clan and began to fight for custody of Qi. Yu's behavior shows that in his view, children should follow their fathers, so this story shows an increase in patriarchal beliefs.

Father Gong and son Yu went through two generations, i.e. the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, which finally ended in the generation of Yu's son, Qi, who took the scepter from Yu and founded the Xia dynasty. According to the traditions of the matrilineal clan society, after Yu, Yi was to be his successor (kit. 益), democratically elected by the tribal union. On his deathbed, Yu nevertheless carried out the will of the people: "he nominated Yi, entrusting him with the affairs of government" and "handed over the Celestial Empire to Yi" ^{[22, p. 163]}. However, in those days, the legitimacy was not the system of voluntary transfer of power by elections and concessions of the matrilineal clan union, but the patrilineal system of hereditary succession to the throne, in which "the son inherits his father's business." In the end, Qi became the new king of the Xia Dynasty and founded a class society at the same time.

Conclusion

According to F. According to Engels, the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy is synchronous with the transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one: "the "wild" warrior and hunter was content with the second place in the house after the woman, the "meeker" shepherd, boasting of his wealth, moved to the first place, and pushed the woman to the second" ^{[15, p. 73]}. Starting with Gong's struggle with his wife Tushan for the right to raise children on behalf of a man in order to fight for the right to procreate in a matriarchal society, then Yu's struggle with his wife Tushan for the right to raise children, i.e. the right of children to inherit their father's surname, and then the reign of Qi and the Xia dynasty, within which power was already transferred From father to son, one can see that there is a line of development that runs through the formation of the patriarchal system. Thanks to Gong, Yu, and Qi, male reproductive rights, the right to transfer the paternal surname to the descendants, and the hereditary right of father and son were established, which completed the transition of the Xia people from matriarchy to patriarchy and the formation of a class society. Despite the fact that this series of changes was completed by Qi, according to mythological sources, this merit belongs to Gong and Yu.